Gourmet Pigs

Monday, September 9, 2019

Los Angeles may be home to a lot of great Korean food, but they're mostly "old school" restaurants and we don't have too much by way of modern Korean cuisine. That is changing with Dandi, a Korean-Southern Californian pop-up from Joshua Pressman and Jihee Kim, which is popping up for dinner at Hotel Normandie (and other future locations). The two chefs met while working at Rustic Canyon.

Dandi offers two tasting menus, an abbreviated and an extended one. I recently tried the extended tasting and started with this trio of appetizers:

Corn silken tofu, dungeness crab, brown butter.
Squash wafer, chicken liver mousse, apple cider jam
Jokbal (pig trotter) croquette, hot peanut sauce, perilla
The corn silken tofu with dungeness crab was our favorite, not just of the plate but of the entire meal! Needless to say, the meal started off strong. The silken tofu was a little sweet thanks to the corn but it worked wonderfully with the brown butter and the sweet crab meat.

Pressman pairs the tasting with mostly natural wines (as much as he can), like this Hasta la Vizsla, a pet nat (petillant naturel) wine from the Loire Valley.
There are also some beer and wine available a la carte if a pairing seems like too much for you.

Next course: Cold soup of peaches, pork belly, flowering coriander
Yes, there are pork belly bits under those peach slices!

Monday, August 26, 2019

It's almost time for one of my favorite food events of the year: LA Loves Alex's Lemonade! They're celebrating their 10th anniversary this year. That's right, 10 years of raising money to end childhood cancer along with great food and drinks. Hosted by Suzanne Goin and Caroline Styne from the Lucques Group and Chef David Lentz (The Hungry Cat), they've raised over $7.3 million since they started - an amazing feat.

This year's event will be on Saturday, September 14, 2019 at UCLA's Royce Quad. I love that LA Loves Alex's Lemonade not only showcases some of LA's best chefs but also bring in great chefs from outside of LA.
This year's LA lineup includes Josef Centeno (Orsa & Winston), Michael Cimarusti (Providence), Ori Menashe (Bavel), Lufo Lefebvre (Trois Mec), and many more. Some of the chefs coming from out of town include Marc Vetri (Vetri, Philadelphia), Gabriela Camara (Contramar, Mexico City), Frank Ibarra (Bibi Ji, Santa Barbara), Perry Hendrix (Avec, Chicago) and Donald Link (Peche, New Orleans).

There's never a shortage of great food and drinks (cocktails or wine) here. I wasn't able to go for a while when I lived in Boston, but I'm excited to return this year!

Photo: Becky Sapp

General admission tickets are $225 and VIP tickets are $500. Tickets are partially tax deductible and can be purchased here. Be sure to check out the great silent and live auction items while you're there, too. It's all for a good cause! Alex's Lemonade Stand Foundation supports various programs from data lab and research initiatives to find cures to providing resources for families to travel to get treatment.

Wednesday, August 14, 2019

With our year-round perfect weather, LA can't have too many rooftop bars. Well, there's another one now, West End Roof Top at The London hotel in West Hollywood.
The West End is a pretty relaxing place to hang out and offers nice views of the city.
The rooftop bar has some frozen blended drinks and easy drinking cocktails. My favorite was the Churchill Goes Tiki (bourbon, pineapple juice, orange juice, orgeat, 1821 Japanese chili lime bitters, $17)